Dunes and beach at Artola near Cabopino, east Marbella, with the port breakwater in the distance

Areas

Elviria & East Marbella

Photo: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0

Along most of the Costa del Sol, the beach ends at a promenade or a road. At the eastern end of Marbella, part of it still ends in sand dunes. The Dunas de Artola, beside the small port of Cabopino, are protected by the Junta de Andalucía as a Natural Monument, and they are one of the few protected natural spaces in Marbella that lie directly on the beach.

This guide covers the eastern side of the municipality, from the mouth of the Río Real, through Elviria and Las Chapas, to Cabopino. It is a residential part of Marbella, several kilometres east of the old town, with no railway and homes spread across the land between the coast and the Sierra Blanca. People choose it for the beaches, the space and the quieter pace, and they accept that daily life depends more on the car than it would in the centre.

How the east of Marbella is organised

Marbella’s town hall divides the municipality into five districts. Listed from west to east, they are San Pedro Alcántara, Nueva Andalucía, Marbella Oeste, Marbella Este and Las Chapas. The last two cover the area described here. Las Chapas has its own municipal district board, with an office on Calle Pinsapo, as part of the town hall’s system of local, decentralised management.

The names people use every day do not always follow district lines. Elviria is the name heard most often in the middle of this stretch, and the Andalusian statistics institute counts it as a separate population centre within Marbella, a sign of how dispersed the settlement is. Cabopino, at the eastern end, is best known for its port and beach, and lies towards the boundary with the neighbouring municipality of Mijas.

At the western edge, the Río Real reaches the sea. An archaeological site occupies a small promontory near the river mouth, and about 300 metres to the west stands the Torre del Río Real. The town hall’s heritage service dates this round watchtower to 1571 and notes that it is less than 11 metres high.

The coast

The Dunas de Artola cover about 19 hectares. They contain three kinds of dune: moving dunes on the beachfront, older dunes now held in place by vegetation, and fossil dunes further inland under pine woodland. The plants here are adapted to strong sun, wind and little water, and include sea daffodil and Phoenician juniper. Inside the protected area stands Torre Ladrones, an old defensive tower listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural.

Next to the dunes, Puerto de Cabopino is a small leisure port with 169 berths. It is managed indirectly by the Junta de Andalucía’s public ports agency. The port area gives the eastern end of the municipality a focal point, with boats, the beach and the protected dunes side by side.

Across the whole municipality, Marbella has 27 kilometres of coastline and 24 beaches. The watchtowers on the eastern shore, including Torre Ladrones and the Torre del Río Real, belong to a network of lookout towers that once watched the coast for raids from the sea.

Life in the eastern districts

Golf has been part of this area since the 1960s. The Río Real course opened in 1965 and was designed by Javier Arana, whom the club describes as Spain’s finest golf course architect. The river runs through the 18-hole, par-72 layout until it reaches the Mediterranean.

Inland, the ground rises towards the Sierra Blanca. The mountain village of Ojén, a separate municipality with its own guide, lies in the hills above this part of the coast.

Marbella had 159,786 registered residents on 1 January 2025, according to INE, which makes it the second-largest municipality in Málaga province. The INE household income atlas for 2023 describes the municipality as a whole: the mean age was 42, households averaged 2.6 people, and 29.5% of residents held a nationality other than Spanish. Average net income was €13,384 per person and €37,606 per household.

Everyday services are spread across the city rather than grouped in the east. Marbella as a whole has 35 supermarkets, 44 pharmacies and seven shopping malls, so it helps to check which ones are closest before choosing a street.

Getting around

Two main roads run parallel to this coast. The A-7 carries local and through traffic without tolls. The AP-7 motorway between Málaga and Guadiaro is a toll road with three toll stations along its length, so regular commuters often compare the cost and journey time of both routes.

Marbella is about 42 km from Málaga–Costa del Sol Airport (AGP). The eastern districts lie between the town centre and the airport, so journeys from Elviria or Cabopino are shorter than from central Marbella.

Marbella has no railway station. The nearest commuter trains are on the Cercanías C1 line, which starts at Fuengirola and runs through Benalmádena, Torremolinos and the airport to Málaga city centre. A coastal rail corridor west of Fuengirola has been planned, but no line has been built.

Schools and healthcare

The main public hospital for this part of the coast is close by. Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol, part of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), stands beside the A-7 at kilometre 187, on the eastern side of Marbella. Its emergency department is open 24 hours a day, and it serves Marbella together with Mijas, Fuengirola, Ojén, Estepona and other nearby municipalities. HC Marbella International is among the private hospitals in the municipality.

For German-language education, the German School Málaga, known in Spanish as Colegio Alemán Juan Hoffmann, sits on the boundary between Marbella and Ojén in the hills above Elviria. It was refounded in 1967 by Juan Hoffmann, then German consul general in Málaga, and teaches children from early years to the end of secondary school.

Marbella has 41 schools in total, including several international schools in other districts of the municipality. Families should compare daily travel times from the east before they choose a home, because the school run can be the longest journey of the day.

The property market

Official housing statistics are published for Marbella as a whole, not for the eastern districts alone. All the figures below therefore describe the entire municipality, and individual homes in Elviria, Las Chapas or Cabopino may sit well above or below them.

  • Consejo General del Notariado, homes sold in the latest 12 months published (retrieved August 2026): 4,037 sales in Marbella at an average of €4,665/m², with an average price of €788,970 and an average size of 169 m².
  • Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana, home transactions based on notarial data, second quarter of 2025 to first quarter of 2026: 4,082 homes sold in Marbella, of which 481 (11.8%) were new builds.
  • Registradores de España, Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria, Málaga province, second quarter of 2026: 8,873 registered home sales at an average of €3,254/m², with an average price of €338,816.
  • Registradores de España, fourth quarter of 2025: foreign buyers made 12.5% of home purchases in Andalucía and 13.52% across Spain.
  • The NLS, sold prices in Marbella, third quarter of 2026 so far: a median of €4,074/m² from only five recorded sales, a very small sample that can move sharply from one quarter to the next.
  • The NLS, asking prices in Marbella, third quarter of 2026: €6,752/m² across 148 NLS listings.

These sources measure different things. Notarial figures come from signed sale deeds, Registradores counts sales once they are entered in the property register, and asking prices on NLS listings show what sellers are hoping for, so the periods and the results will not match.

The notarial series also gives a provincial reference point. Across Málaga province, notaries recorded 33,997 home sales in the same 12 months at an average of €3,061/m², well below the Marbella average.

Who East Marbella suits

The eastern districts suit buyers who want Marbella’s hospital, schools and services but prefer to live near a protected beach and a small port rather than a busy promenade. Golfers have the 1965 Río Real course on the western edge. Families who want German-language schooling have the German School in the hills above Elviria.

The area suits fewer people who want to walk to shops, restaurants and a train. Distances between homes, beaches and services are longer here, and the nearest commuter rail station is in Fuengirola. For a daily routine without a car, central Marbella or Fuengirola may be more practical.

Elviria & East Marbella on the map

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